April 4, 2017 SONGWRITERS ON WRITING HIT SONGS AND MAKING MONEY NEWSLETTER A n E n t e r t a i n m e n t I n d u s t r y O r g a n i z a t i on 5 Tips for Songwriting Success in the New Year The President’s Corner By: Jason Blume via www.bmi.com Greetings All! Songs and Songwriters…They are the very essence of our Turning the page on a new year is exciting! We business. Whether it be a streaming company, record label or get 365 new opportunities to accomplish goals music publishing company, all thrive from THE SONG! Songs and live our dreams. But success is rarely realized contain the magic that can change a mood from sad to joyous. by dreaming unless it is accompanied by action. They can transport you from one plain of existence to another So … here are some tips to help you attain all that and can communicate sentiments not easily expressed with the you hope for in the coming year. simple spoken word. Technology has allowed for easy access Set Realistic Goals and consumption of intellectual property (SONGS) but how do “If you don’t know where you are going, you songwriters make money in addition to these innovations? might wind up someplace else.” —Yogi Berra This month’s panel focuses on songs, songwriters and the ways Having a goal infuses your life with purpose, in which songwriters maintain their craft! richness and meaning. It gives you something to reach for, something to aspire to. By identifying our short-term and long-term goals, we can focus Tonight’s moderators Mara Schwartz-Kuge and David Quan on the actions and steps that can bring us closer to have put together a group of outstanding songwriters that have achieving what we hope for. Without a clearly penned many of the songs contained on that playlist on our defined objective we are shooting arrows in the phone, that CD on your shelf or the “pieces of vinyl” you dark, and the chances of hitting a bull’s-eye will recently purchased! be pretty slim. The CCC would like to thank Ale Alberti, Mike City, Vincent Of course, not every goal can be reached. If my Berry II, and JHart for taking the time this evening to share goal is to have a #1 song on the charts by next their stories, their songs and most of the all…the MAGIC OF week, I will need to write the song, record a Their Songs! demo, place it with an artist, have them record it, and have it climb to the top of the charts—all in James R. Leach President, California Copyright Conference !1 the next seven days. That’s not going to happen. If my objective is to secure a #1, my best course of action is to plot out a course and focus on the individual, measurable steps that I can take. Back when I was putting on my uniform of a jacket and tie and driving an hour each way in bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic to feed paper into a shredder eight hours a day, I would search my soul, looking for the one next thing I could do to bring me closer to earning a living from my songs. I knew I’d been born to create music—not to create mountains of shredded paper. During my breaks I would seek intuition to show me the route to the top of the Billboard charts. I always received answers. Some of those answers were: • Study the lyrics of my favorite current hit songs and analyze the techniques the writers used • Enroll in a music business class or conference where I will be able to network with other songwriters, music publishers and industry professionals • Get professional feedback on my latest song • Rewrite a chorus melody five times, exploring various rhythms, different notes, and alternate chords • Record a new demo • Seek a collaborator • Learn to play three new chords on the guitar and incorporate at least one of them into a new song None of these actions in and of themselves produced instant success. But combined, they all kept me moving forward and ultimately contributed to my achieving my goals. Carve Out the Time I not only needed to isolate specific actions to take, I needed to stipulate the times when I would take those steps. I am far more likely to follow through with my commitment if I state, “I will spend two hours this Thursday evening (7 p.m. till 9 p.m.) learning how to use a drum machine,” than if I make a vague promise such as, “I’m going to learn how to use a drum machine.” We can’t make more time. Doing so is something that even the most creative among us has never been able to master. So it is up to us to decide how we allocate our most precious resource. We can choose whether to spend our minutes surfing the Internet, zoning out in front of the TV, playing solitaire, or taking one of the steps we have isolated that might propel us further along the road to our goals. We all have responsibilities and obligations that compete with our “creative” time. But those who are successful find ways to juggle creative pursuits with their other commitments. When I was working temp jobs it worked well for me to wake up one hour early each morning and devote that time to writing songs—before a long, exhausting day could dull the spark of my creativity. I wrote my first book, 6 Steps to Songwriting Success (Billboard Books) while I was signed to a music publishing company as a staff-writer, by writing from 6 a.m. till 9 a.m. Monday through Friday for eighteen months, before heading to Music Row to write songs. I could not write a book in a day, a week, or even a month. But I could write one or two pages a day, and at the end of eighteen months, those pages added up to a finished book. Prior to landing that staff-writing deal, in addition to writing in the morning, I found it helped if I separated myself from the role I took on during the work day by taking a twenty-minute nap and a quick shower when I got back home, changing out of my business clothes, and lighting a candle. I felt refreshed and was better able to access my creative self. !2 Another strategy was to schedule a writing appointment, a time to pitch songs, or some other task to further my career, and write that in my calendar. Doing this helped me to live up to that commitment just as I would if I had scheduled any other appointment. Not everyone can be creative in the morning, nor is it feasible for everyone to carve out time in the evening. For some people the key might be to allocate part of each weekend as their time to be creative. If success is a priority, each of us must use a bit of our creativity to delineate some time designated for the pursuit of our goals. We get to write the pages of our life stories with the words and actions we choose. If you feel you need permission to pursue a life that allows you to express your creativity to its fullest and enjoy the rewards of doing so, I hereby grant you permission to follow your dreams and create all the success you hope for—and more! Eat Your Frogs It has been said, “If you have to eat a frog, do it first thing in the morning. If you have to eat two of them, eat the biggest one first.” Regardless of how passionate we feel about our work there are likely some aspects of it we’d rather not do. Some tasks become “frogs” because we fear them or feel inadequate to accomplish them. Others are simply things we dislike doing. For example, I’ve heard countless songwriters say, “I love writing songs, but the thought of attending music industry events or pitching my songs to publishers ties my stomach in knots. I wish I could just get paid to write songs and have someone else take care of the business.” But the music business is a business, and those who succeed in it tend to be those who excel at both the music and the business. It can be helpful to create a “to do” list and accomplish the tasks you’d rather not do first. Getting rid of those frogs provides a sense of accomplishment, frees up creative energy, and brings us closer to our goals. Develop Persistence and a Tough Skin Western Union chose not to purchase Alexander Graham Bell’s patent for the telephone, declaring that it was little more than a toy. Fifteen publishers passed on an unknown J.K. Rowling’s story about a boy wizard, and The Beatles were famously rejected by Epic Records with the statement, “Guitar groups are on their way out.” Rejection and disappointment pave the road to success. There are countless stories of superstar recording artists who faced repeated rejections, songs that took years before finding chart success, and GRAMMY-winning songwriters who were turned down by numerous music publishers. Those who are given the double-edged gift of creativity need to have the tender, open heart of an artist—surrounded by the armor of an armadillo.